Pop it like it's hot

I bet this guy just found out from the MTV News or something that popping your collar means you're ready for hot sweaty bumpin' uglies RIGHT NOW.

Or maybe he's just worn his shirt like this since 1982.

I don't want no 8 ball, 8 ball

I thought I knew all about shitty fortified wine for teenagers and winos, but I was unaware that Mad Dog 20/20 is a kosher wine.

Then again, "Mad Dog 20/20" is what I'd expect someone named Mogen David to choose as his emcee name when he decides it's time to mic it and throw down some rhymes.

A banner with a strange device

1. Who put the attack reptile in the lake at the park? (via LAobserved)
   
   
2. Listen to the The Wandering Soul, a magnificently creepy ghost sounds tape that U.S. soldiers played from boats at Vietnamese people during the war as a psychological warfare operation, pretending to be a message from their dead friends. (via The Nonist)
   
   
3. 100 Years of Orange County, an online photographic project from the Orange County Register. Some funny, some interesting, some chilling pictures from the last century of my odd little corner of the world. Start at January and move forward; moving backward for some reason jumps over two half-months at a time instead of one, missing half the content. I especially like the pic of Howard Hughes after he crashed in the Costa Mesa sugar beet field.

Not John McClane but not Atticus Finch either

The era of the nice guy ended as I hit puberty, and action heroes owned the Alpha Male role for my adult life. So being the romantic lead was out. That belonged to action heroes. The top roles all went to suburban tough guys in lifted trucks with Sex Wax stickers, and they were welcome to it.

There was an alternate role I tried to assume. Most of the women I like have had the same kind of guy, a type I just call The Boyfriend. He's always reasonably tall and slender, and has close cut hair, often curly for some reason. He almost always has glasses. He's in shape but not an athlete, educated but not a scholar. He wears very clean t-shirts and jeans, and athletic shoes. He's a very nice guy, thoughtful and a good conversationalist. He has a good job and his car is always clean when he gives you a ride. He looks completely normal, like he'd fade into the background, but when you get to know him he's interesting and has some obsession with the arts.

After meeting about ten of those guys in a row I realized that was The Boyfriend, and I had to be him. Never got there. I was too skinny and then too fat, my shirts were stained, and I talked fast in paragraphs about strange things. I could tell great stories that entertained The Boyfriend and The Girl, and they always both liked me, but I was outside their sphere somehow. I wore my geek on my sleeve, and he kept his more private.

I never could really click as a friend with The Boyfriend, as nice and smart as the guy was. He was just too beige. There was something Stepfordian about these dudes, the way they all looked so similar and had similar lives. They were mass-produced in the college classes we didn't take, maybe. Or they'd all been to some training program on how to be a boyfriend that we hadn't heard about.

All the women I was interested in and some I got close to, all of them had The Boyfriend eventually and most of them married him. Probably a good choice. Action heroes always turn out to be drunks and wifebeaters, but Atticus Finch is a straight arrow and a reliable life mate, and he's not an idiot or an asshole.

I had my Sunday afternoon experience again today: a parade of prettier, happier, more successful people all coupled up. Friends moving on with their lives, people I had not seen in a while popping up to show their progress, and not a few of The Boyfriend, especially of course at Trader Joe's as I was finishing my grocery shopping tonight.

I couldn't be you, Atticus, but I respect you for not being John McClane. The role I got was either Caliban, or Bottom, or maybe Cyrano. Stop by any time and I'll tell you funny stories.

The Legend of Aquaman

He arrives in an old Suzuki Sidekick,white with pink and blue pinstripes, and strides in resplendent in a mane of dyed and teased Male Pattern Doofus, plucked eyebrows, and one of an assortment of costumes including but not limited to: captain's hat with corncob pipe and blazer; medieval/druidic tunic and Roman strap sandals; loud blue-green aloha shirt with slacks and espadrilles; or New Age t-shirt covered in Native American imagery and/or crystal faeries.

His life is mysterious. Before Bree snapped and robbed a bank he used to talk to her a lot, but even a freaked-out Crowleyan transgendered blues singer found him too outré and would sink back into her studies of Left Hand Magick with an apologetic smile. A particular exchange I overheard one day became legendary. They were discussing movie actors and their pay, and that female stars were paid less, and he said: "Well, of course, there's one business where the women get paid more, and that's... [pause for effect]... [slowly and deliberately licks top teeth] poooornography."

His nickname comes from the blue-green aloha shirt outfit, which looks like an aquarium just exploded on him.

I present to you a genuine California eccentric:

( two 800x533 jpegs )

The TV show is about one high school...

The rest of the O.C. mostly looks like this:





The rest of the afternoon's photos are in this Flickr photo set. I drove McFadden from the freeway to Euclid and then Edinger back, and caught a Sunday afternoon in South Santa Ana.